No Rest For The Stubborn
by Caffey
Summary: She wouldn't fall asleep on the bridge to save her life...


**Disclaimer:** They're not mine, they never were. But since I'm not making money from this - and honestly, who in their right mind would buy this - I feel reasonably confident that Paramount won't sic their laywers on me. *crosses fingers*

**Author's note:** Lack of sleep normally isn't conductive to writing unless that's what you write about. Write what you know, right? And boy do I ever know. *yawns* Mistakes may abound, even more so than usual. I'm that tired.

**Rating:** PG

**No Rest For The Stubborn**  
by Caff

She would _not_ fall asleep on her own Bridge.

Kathryn Janeway was clinging to that resolution with a desperation like burnt leola root to a plate, but it was becoming more and more difficult for her to keep her lids from dropping. She'd be damned if she gave into her body's demands, though. Not to mention that she'd never live it down if she gave in now and retired to her quarters, however tempting that thought might be. If there was one thing she hated more than coffee gone cold, it was losing.

She raised her mug and took a sip, then shuddered. Cold coffee was a close second, however.

Only forty-five minutes to go until end of shift, she reminded herself. It was doable. Not enjoyable by any stretch of the imagination, but she could survive them. She might have to mercy-kill herself afterwards, but she would prevail.

Slanting a glance at Chakotay from beneath her lashes, Kathryn noted with grim satisfaction that he wasn't faring much better. There were lines of exhaustion marking his skin and a glazed quality to his normally liquid dark eyes. He looked ready to topple over, a fact he must have been aware of, if only on a subconscious level, since he was keeping his spine abnormally straight.

"Serves you right," she muttered, facing forward again. It was, after all, his fault.

"I heard that."

Her head snapped back around at the accusatory note in his voice, and she caught him glaring at her. "Well, it does. I could be asleep in my bed now, secure in the knowledge that, for once, I stood a chance of catching eight hours of sweet, uninterrupted sleep. Eight hours, Chakotay," she repeated for emphasis. "That's four hundred and eighty minutes. Twenty-eight thousand-"

He held up a hand to stop the flow of words. It was shaking slightly, but whether from lack of sleep or caffeine overdose she couldn't tell. Probably both.

"I get the picture, trust me," Chakotay replied, and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. He looked beat, certainly even worse than Kathryn was currently feeling, and she felt herself softening marginally. "What I don't get is why you're blaming me for this."

Her gaze narrowed, and she stabbed a finger at him. "Because it's your fault."

His brows made for his hairline at warp speed, giving her whiplash. "Why?"

It was a good question, and she blinked mutely at him when the answer didn't immediately become apparent, even to herself. Why was it his fault again, she wondered, and absently tapped a finger in a staccato rhythm on the armrest of her chair. She was reasonably sure that she had had a reason, but she couldn't, for the life of her, remember it now. Not that she needed one, being the captain of the ship and all that. "It simply is," Kathryn said, her voice flat. "I'll think of a reason later." Much, much later. Like, after she'd died of old age.

Her synapses perked up at the thought of death, and she had to clamp down hard on the impulse to head for the nearest weapon's locker.

_If_ she died of old age.

"That's it," Chakotay interrupted her line of thought, and stood on legs that barely seemed to hold him up. "You can't even make up a reason. We're leaving now."

Her hands shot out to grab the edges of her chair, and her voice chilled to the point of freezing the air around them. "Over my dead body, Commander." Oh, great. There she went again with the death wish. Maybe he had a point...

Chakotay, probably through years of practice, ignored her and easily pried her fingers loose, then tugged on her hands to pull her up. That her body wasn't as resistant to his actions as her mind wanted it to be was galling. Doubly so since they'd crossed half the Bridge before she noticed they they'd been moving.

"Ensign Kim, the Bridge is yours," Chakotay called over his shoulder in the general direction of Ops. Kathryn was glad that at least one of them was still maintaining a minimum of brain activity.

"Yes, sir."

Together they staggered onto the turbolift, and slumped against the walls as soon as the doors had closed.

"How the hell are we going to make it back to our quarters, Chakotay?"

He put one arm around her, although she had the sneaking suspicion that all he wanted was a shoulder to lean on. "Not ours, Kathryn, yours."

With supreme effort she managed to raise her brows. "Mine?"

"They're closer."

**End**


End file.
